The Translation of Indonesian Reduplication into English

Abstract

Every language has its own way to communicate its expression. Indonesian has reduplication such as pagi-pagi, cantik-cantik, and jalan-jalan. The English translation of this reduplication is not *morning-morning, *beautiful-beautiful, and*walking-walking respectively. In this case, the translators should make an adjustment when they transfer the message of the Indonesian reduplication into English. This study investigates how Indonesian university students, teachers, and professionals translate the Indonesian reduplications into English. It explores the meaning and structure resulted from the translation. The participants are university students, lecturers and employees. They are given questionnaires in which they translate the Indonesian reduplication into English. The analysis involves the morphological, syntactic and semantic aspects of the translation, as well as the deviations that possibly occur in the translation.